Put that headphone jack anywhere you want it

Check out this brand new Yamaha keyboard. The fact that we’re seeing the guts means that [Todd Harrison] can kiss his warranty goodbye. But by now you should know that he doesn’t look to others when something goes wrong with his electronics. This time around he’s not repairing anything. He didn’t like having to plug in headphones on the rear of the keyboard. He cracked it open and relocated the headphone jack to a more convenient location.

As you can see, there’s a ton of room inside once the MDF base which holds the speakers and some sounding boxes has been removed. While he’s in there he takes a good look at the mechanics of the keys. They’re weighted with metal rods (seen above) to help the electronic instrument feel more like an acoustic version to the player. But he doesn’t neglect the chance to gawk at all the electronics as well.

After pulling out the PCB that has the headphone jack on it he goes to work with a solder sucker. With the solder gone he cuts through the glue that holds the jack on the board. All that’s left is to solder some wire in its place and give it a nice project box as an enclosure. To complete the hack he mounts the box on the MDF base and now the headphones connect on the front. See the entire process in the video after the break.

What is more simple is to add a toggle switch for the speaker and headphones and leave the headphone connected all times. (So simple remove the “switching” capability of the headphone jack to a manual switch).

Yup, a blit late, but I bought a Yamaha P-45 for my wife and it too has the phone jack in rear and is a pain in the rear….

So, I am looking for a simple solution to having a phone jack in the front, yet I hope to have the keyboard still play with out a headset plugged in…. Could you tell me more of how to use the toggle switch for the speaker and headphones??

I’m all for hardware hacking and case modifications, but the ‘heart and soul’ of this project could have been solved with less risk by going to a dollar store and buying a 2′ M-F 1/4″ phonejack extension. Even cooler would be a SPST to cut the jack sensing. :/

add more functionality by adding a “line in” socket to the keyboard. done right you have another 1/4″ on the back called line in and the whole thing looks unmolested. after that the world is your oyster you can leave both jacks in and bypass feed in do whatever you like outside of the pretty box

Wouldn’t have worked. It is a mechanical switching socket, plug jack in, speakers switch off. If you just wired another up in parallel with it, the speakers would still be switched on when you used it, defeating the purpose entirely.

I did wonder why this wasn’t done. i suppose the argument is that he didnt want to make an extra hole or route inside the case. overall the very simplest solution eluded to by Ruud further up is use an extension and switch it with a toggle. (still believe that music tech you pay this much for should have designed this issue out)